


Salvation without regret

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Better A Bird, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-09 11:04:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10410747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: She’s too smart for half the work she’s assigned but so much of her history is in blacked out and utterly redacted military files that the true extent of her intelligence remains woefully underestimated by her (largely white, male) co-workers.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/gifts).



> A birthday present for the absolutely _lovely_ [theMightyPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/). Happy Birthday L! Have a good one.
> 
> Thanks to Niamh for help with the title, which is from [Here](https://www.openbible.info/topics/regret).
> 
> I listened to [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWLT7vyrDA4) and [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnWsGSwa-Kw) while I wrote.

**2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV**   
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to  _ salvation without regret _ , whereas worldly grief produces death. 

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Betty resents Bruce. 

This isn’t fair, she  _ knows _ it isn’t fair. Bruce was manipulated into testing the serum on himself, had his life ruined, was hunted by her father for  _ years. _

But now he’s a hero, under the protection of heroes. Now he saves lives, has saved the  _ world. _

What about her?

She’s just as brilliant as he is, just as clever and capable, just as hate-valued by her own  _ father. _

And yet, she is left behind.

Then she rubs her forehead, and reminds herself that this isn’t fair and that she needs to move on.

 

* * *

 

It’s hard though. She’s not  _ present _ to him, she’s invisible. One face among many, at arms length.

He’s in the news, or Hulk is, bright and green and impossible to miss.

And when she does manage to move on, to move past this, well...What can she say to Jim Parkinson from HR when she asks if she’s ok when they’re out at dinner, when he says that she seems nervous? “Sorry Jimmy, my ex is the Hulk?”

Last time she said that she’d been laughed out of the therapists office.

So. She doesn’t date. She has the words ‘Avenger’, ‘Hulk’ and ‘Bruce Banner’ blocked on her newsfeeds. And she never, ever opens the drafted email with the contact details for Avengers Tower.

She focusses on her work and blocks her father’s calls.

 

* * *

 

Bruce lives in Avengers Tower. Betty lives in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and her only companion is a hairless cat she found by the side of the road.

He’s called Albert, for Einstein, and he’s the most affectionate cat she’s ever met.

He’s at her ankles when she gets in - but never trips her up - and he’ll sit on his part of the kitchen counter and watch her make dinner. When she slumps on the sofa he stretches out beside her and lets her sit there, gently massaging his side.

Before she goes to bed he always reminds her to feed him, and then, when she emerges from the bathroom, he’s finished and sits, yawning, at the foot of her bed.

When she wakes in the morning he’s a small knot of warmth against her back.

 

* * *

 

She likes her work. She does, really. Honest guv’nor. But it isn’t enough to distract her anymore. She’s too smart for half the work she’s assigned but so much of her history is in blacked out and utterly redacted military files that the true extent of her intelligence remains woefully underestimated by her (largely white, male) co-workers. 

Then again, if it wasn’t it’s a toss-up if she’d be blamed for Hulk or if her achievements would be attributed to Bruce.

 

* * *

 

She could contact him. It’d be very easy to, really. She has the contact details. Her surname still carries weight, when wielded correctly. Once, many years ago, she and Stark had moved in similar scientific circles and at the least Bruce won’t have forgotten her.

Won’t he?

Then Albert claws at her legs and distracts her.

 

* * *

 

She resents Bruce. It’s easy to admit to, these days, but she doesn’t hate it any less. She still loves him, on some level, and balancing this - the love, the resentment, the hatred  _ of _ the resentment - is awful. She can’t even talk to someone about it - she refuses to talk to her father, Bruce is  _ gone _ , anyone else would laugh and she hasn’t tried to find a therapist since that’d happened.

It’s terrifying. She’s starting to think it’s all in her head.

 

* * *

 

_ “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” _

She jolts awake just in time to hear Dumbledore’s farewell in the Platform scene. She recalls dozing off during Neville’s run across the bridge so it hasn’t been all that long. She’s much more tired than she thought though, so she shuts the film off and scoops a dozing Albert up, setting him down on the windowsill with his soon-full bowl.

“Sorry Al,” she murmurs, stroking the grumbling cat as he eats. “It’s one of those days.”

She falls asleep curled in bed, Albert pressed against her back.

 

* * *

 

She wakes to something she could never expect.

There’s a redheaded lady at her door in a sharp suit and sharper heels, a man walking at her shoulder who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, and two more waiting by the car in the street.

“Hello,” the woman says, offering her hand. “I’m Pepper Potts. May I come in?”

 

* * *

 

It’s not as though Betty doesn’t know who Pepper Potts is. She absolutely  _ does, _ she’d met her at one of the scientific soirees she used to get invited to before… everything. She’d been herding the cat of a man that is Tony Stark then, and, now, she heads his business. Somehow, Betty isn’t surprised.

She  _ does _ know who Pepper Potts is, but it doesn’t make it any less gobsmacking to have her at her door.

 

* * *

 

Pepper Potts looks incredibly out of place on Betty’s sofa. She’s all neat and tidy in her pressed suit, her pointed shoes, her shining hair coiled up into an elegantly twisting knot at the back of her head. Betty stands by the windowsill, still in her pyjamas, Albert coiling around her ankles. She can see, in the corner of the room, where Potts’ bodyguard stands at the door.

It occurs to her, as Pepper starts pulling paperwork out of a neat and precise little black folder that she should probably offer her a drink.

“Can I get y-” she starts and Pepper shakes her head, lifts a hand.

“No,” Pepper says. “No, it’s all right. I just want to ask something and then, if you don’t want to listen any more I’ll be gone.”  She smiles politely. “I don’t want to waste your morning.”

It’s a very early morning - the sky is that pale, delicate blue it turns after the shimmering range of sunrise fades, the sun streaming into the room through the window at a shallow angle, her shadow cast in a huge dark shape across the floor. 

“So why are you here?”

She hasn’t been so blunt in a long while, but maybe she’s just tired, maybe she resents even Pepper Potts sat before her simply for getting a chance to talk to Bruce where she hasn’t for the past ten  _ fucking  _ years.

“You know,” Potts says, “About Dr. Banner going missing, I trust?”

Potts’ eyes are carefully lowered at the paperwork before her, almost as though she thinks eye contact is unwise. Betty can’t blame her. It’s half six in the morning, she’s been woken by a stranger and not  _ two days _ ago, she saw the news that the Hulk -  _ Bruce _ \- had vanished.

(She thinks she has a fair idea why. Bruce had never wanted to fight, least of all as Hulk.)

Betty jerks a nod. “Kind of hard to miss that when it’s on every newspaper in the country.”

Potts sighs softly. “We’re down a science person. Tony can get in contact with just about anyone in the scientific community he wants to, and can list at least fifty off the top of his head who he knows would leap at a chance to work in the Tower or with the Avengers, but only about thirty who’d be ok with working with the new members.” She looks up, head tilted slightly. “And only one who he thinks would be a fitting replacement for Bruce.”

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


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